Most of America’s eyes on Sunday might have been on Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas but about halfway across the country 1,600 miles away in Indiana, the Indianapolis Zoo celebrated a different kind of victory — the birth of a rare white rhino.
With an estimated global population of less than 17,000 white rhinos left in the world, according to Save the Rhino, an international Rhino conservation charity, the live-birth in captivity of the white rhino calf, a first for the Indianapolis Zoo, is considered a big victory.
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“Indianapolis has its own big winner to celebrate today with the arrival of a white rhinoceros calf born at 9:13 a.m. to 19-year-old mother Zenzele,” the zoo said in it’s birth announcement. “This is the first live-birth rhinoceros calf for the Indianapolis Zoo and Zenzele’s seventh calf.
Rhinoceros care staff began overnight watches early this month when Zenzele started producing milk and showed physical signs of impending labor, according to the Indianapolis Zoo.